Fernandes de Sant'Ana (Father Manuel)

Father Manuel Fernandes de Sant'Ana was born on 14 May 1864 in the parish (freguesia) of São Gonçalo, the son of Francisco Fernandes and Dona Ana Pereira Fernandes de Sant'Ana. In 1881 he abandoned the preparatory course at the seminary (Seminário) of this diocese to enter the Society of Jesus, in which he took his vows and remained until his death. Giving his schooling a new direction, he began his studies in Portugal, continued them in Spain, Germany and England, and completed them in Holland. At Oña, in Spain, on a philosophy course for aspirants to the Society, he was judged the most talented of ninety select students, with the sharpest and most penetrating intellect. His academic triumphs were as many as the subjects and disciplines he studied. He distinguished himself in oriental languages – Greek, it is said, was as familiar to him as his own mother tongue – and in mathematics, biology and the social sciences; in theology he had a profound knowledge of everything connected with the vast field of Holy Scripture studies.

He was a tireless worker. Besides the most scrupulous performance of his own duties as a priest, all the time he could spare was devoted entirely to study and to works of Catholic apostolate. He seems to have had a burning, insatiable thirst for knowledge, and the further he opened new horizons in the field of his scientific work, the more he was consumed by an impatient longing to extend his already vast and profound learning. Study absorbed him so completely, and he was so miserly with his time, that he denied himself all rest, and even the small pastimes and recreations that his rule imposed on him, always seeking to justify the omission by the need to carry out without delay the most urgent and pressing tasks. It was in this way, together with his exceptional talent and the quick and ready perception with which his mind was gifted, that he enriched his intellect with the astonishing store of knowledge that amazed those who heard him or read his writings. Father Sant'Ana was not merely a scholar but a philosopher and a true man of science, as he eloquently showed in the work he wrote refuting the doctrines of Dr Miguel Bombarda.

Father Fernandes de Sant'Ana’s apostolate of Catholic action was truly remarkable. Perhaps never before in Portugal had religious ideals been promoted with such ardent zeal, such self-denial and such a spirit of sacrifice and selflessness as in the campaign of which he was the soul and the valiant, fearless leader. For some time the work of the Catholic press claimed the full attention of his enlightened zeal, and he devoted to it all the energy of his astonishing activity. He founded a widely circulated newspaper, wrote pamphlets, became a dauntless champion of journalism by both the spoken and the written word, created several associations and formed various centres of propaganda, all aimed at advancing Catholic action through the press.

Father Sant'Ana’s literary and scientific output is very significant, but it would have been greater still had he not died in the prime of life, before reaching the age of 46, his last years spent in the torment of a cruel illness. His frail constitution, the excessive apostolic labours to which he devoted himself for many years, the time given to teaching and many other cares and exertions all did much to cut short his active and industrious life.

Besides his extensive contributions to various reviews and newspapers and a number of pamphlets, he published the following works: Questões de Biologia. O materialismo em face da sciencia, 1900, 2 volumes of 489 and 567 pp.; Curso de Religião. Apologetica, 1901, 317 pp., of which only the 1st volume appeared; and O Evangelho segundo S. Matheus, 1909, LVII-325 pp. Under the title P. Manuel Fernandes de Santanna, Gotas Biographicas, his fellow Jesuit A. de Meneses published a pamphlet of 36 pages containing very interesting and valuable material for the biography of this distinguished fellow Madeiran of ours.

Father Fernandes de Sant'Ana, one of the most illustrious Madeirans of recent times, died in Lisbon on 3 May 1910.